The Darkness and The Deep. Aline Templeton. Hodder & Stoughton. (2006)

Very engaging and enjoyable crime story, a smart mix of a modern police procedural and village murder story. The loss of the Knockhaven lifeboat with the three crew is a huge blow for the small village, when it is found to have been deliberately engineered it exposes the fierce tensions and struggles that are swirling through the community. Detective Inspector Marjory Fleming is aware that drug smuggling has steadily replaced fishing as the most important local industry and has to establish if the wrecking was related to it. With tensions within the investigating team complicating matters, the mixed motives and agendas of the large, superbly drawn, cast are cleverly woven together and finally lead to a very satisfactory conclusion.
Aline Templeton makes very effective use of the context, the small community with is suffering from the terminal decline of the fishing industry and everyone knows some version of everyone else’s business. As with the best of village murder stories, the community has a multitude of motives and plausible suspects, the disentangling of which is one of the pleasures of the book. The cast are given room to breathe and grow into themselves, the reveals are cunning staged and arise very naturally from the action.
The counter pointing and overlapping of the tensions within the police investigation with the villagers is very neatly structured, Marjory Fleming's domestic troubles are plausible and expertly woven into the story. The final unravelling reveals something very nasty, it anchors the brutality of the wrecking of the lifeboat with grim strength and effectively bitter action. Great crime fiction, a pleasure.

Cold in the Earth. Aline Templeton. Hodder (2005)

A compelling and engaging crime story with a great cast, brilliantly realised location and a tightly wound plot. Following the death of her mother Laura Sonfeldt decides to investigate the disappearance of her older sister fifteen years previously. In Galloway in Scotland, a remote farming community is hammered by the outbreak of foot and mouth in their sheep and cattle herds as well as the discovery of a skeleton. Detective Marjory Flemming has to investigate the case as well as keep public order in a community splintering under the impact of the mass slaughter of the flocks of animals. The threads of the plot are carefully woven together, the reveals are brilliantly staged, and the climax packs a considerable punch.
The context for the plot is superbly done, an isolated community under savage pressure that is attacking the focus of its identity, a farming community being forced to watch its stock be destroyed. Marjory Flemming, a police officer, a farmer and a farmer's wife is stretched across the fault lines and forced to make damaging choices. She is smart, resilient and dedicated playing a poor hand with force and thoughtfulness. Laura Sonfeldt, trying to recover her bearing in life after the death of her mother develops strongly throughout the story.
There is a glorious supporting cast who are all vying for the readers attention, they are full of life and vigour, none are stereotypes or shortchanged by Aline Templeton. A pleasure.